


I Was Thinking...

by Stormfet



Category: Ghostbusters (2016), Ghostbusters - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Holtzbert - Freeform, Some more Fluff, more to come - Freeform, they are in love, what young cuties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-02
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-12 14:30:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7938172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Stormfet/pseuds/Stormfet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Holtzmann and Gilbert get called to take care of another subway ghost and go and get chinese food and be real cute together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Was Thinking...

“So I was thinking.” Erin jerked up out of her reverie. She had a sheet of equations laid out in front of her, motion calculations going through her mind, but she had drifted off into staring into nothing. She had trouble sleeping last night and it was showing this morning as she kept losing track of what she was saying.

“Erin, wake up girl! You need some more coffee? We can have Kevin go on a run later,” Patty said from across the room at her computer. The map of Manhattan lay out in front of her, red, yellow and green x’s laid out in neat lines.

Erin blinked. Two different conversations going on at the same time. She jerked herself back. “Actually yeah, coffee would be nice,” she said. Patty nodded and went to go talk to Kevin. Erin allowed herself thirty seconds to stare at Kevin, busy attempting to figure out why the phone wouldn’t go into the receiver (it was upside down).

Erin looked back over at the original source of jerking. Abby was busy at the receiver radio, twiddling dials, a steno notebook in front of her covered in notes. She looked around further and noticed Holtz climbing up the stairs. She shrugged and went back to her equations.

“I’ll go get some coffee, ladies, but we just got a call. 24th and 2nd in the subway. Who wants to take it?” Kevin said, doing that thing he occasionally did where he ran across the room and slid along the side of one of the tables. 

“I got this one,” Erin said, looking around at the other busters busy in their work. She needed something to shake her up.

“Did someone say there was a ghost in need of a busting?” Holtz said, sliding down the firepole from the second floor, landing on the ground with a thump from her steel-toed boots. “I could use a break from getting shocked from this circuit.” She tossed a wrench to herself. 

“Let’s do it Holtz,” Erin said with a smile, and Holtz’s face lit right up. 

“Ah, you and me Gilbert. Let’s do this,” she said, and the two of them grabbed proton packs, strapping them on as they headed to the car. 

“Kevin said it was 24th and 2nd. Subway systems,” Erin said, hopping in the passenger’s seat as Holtzmann took the wheel.

“Any word on the class? Ionized form? Substantial substance?” Holtz said as she shifted the hertz into reverse and pulled out of the old fireman house. Despite the yellow siren being illegal, she still flipped it on.

“Holtz,” Erin said, flipping the switch off. “The mayor told us not to use that anymore.”

“Since when have we listened to the mayor?” Holtz said with a grin and flipped the siren back on. Erin smiled to herself as she turned to look out the window, catching Holtz’ smile out of the corner of her eye. “Let’s get some tunes on,” she added, flipping on the radio. The usual terrible disco floated out of the speaker, this time the sounds of ABBA’s Waterloo mid refrain.

Soon enough they had expertly (and also perhaps illegally) traversed the New York pre-rush hour traffic using their illegal siren as Cynthia Lauper started over the radio. Erin laughed at Holtz’s wide eyed impression and garbled throat singing. 

“Come on!” Holtzmann said, pulling into a parking spot and shutting off the car. “I think if this guy has light ionization we might even be able to bring ‘im back for observation! I’ve been perfecting the portable vacuum trap, you know, Erin, I realized that the locking mechanism was messing with the suction power of the machine --”

“Hustle, you dork!” Erin barked as the two of them grabbed proton packs and hustled into the subway station, sneaking through the exit to get into the tracks. Erin pulled out the ionization detector, it’s pink glow sticks still for now but emitting a bright pink haze. 

The two of them vaulted onto the tracks, avoiding the third rail, and travelled along them. The next train wasn’t for another 14 minutes. There was time. This was much less tense than the first time, or the second time, or the many, many times after that they had had to go into the subway for a ghost. After all, the subway seemed to spawn them like nobody’s business.

“Holtzmann! Holtzmann!” Erin’s eyes widened as the detector whirred to life, resembling some sort of toy one would buy on sale from Target for a college party and discard. Erin secretly loved Holtzmann’s design. 

“Quick, quick, the proton gun,” Holtzmann said, firing her’s up and pointing it down the subway. 

Before the two girls’ eyes, a blue light shimmered to life, a hazy form. “Class two, nothing to worry about,” Holtzmann said with a grin. “They’ve been losing strength a little bit, this’ll be great if we can capture it and bring it back for some comparative observations with the class three and fours--”

“Holtzy, shut up,” Erin practically barked. She didn’t see Holtzmann’s reaction, but she noticed it shut Holtz right up. Erin wasn’t sure if it was the direct order or the use of “Holtzy”. She would figure it out later. 

Erin fired up the proton pack and took aim. Holtz meanwhile positioned the portable trap. “NOW!” she yelled at Erin, firing the metal can-looking device just below the ghost. It popped open as Erin blasted the class two with a red beam of protons, encircling the ionized phantom and holding it in place as the trap did its job, chemical reaction working to create the perfect vacuum, pulling the ghost inside. The cannister snapped shut as Holtzmann pulled her foot off.

“Gilbert, that was brilliant!” Holtzmann said with a jump in the air. “You didn’t even get slimed!”

“Wow,” Erin said, pushing some of the hair that had flown loose in the commotion behind her ear. She turned to Holtzmann. “You think we got time to take this baby back to the lab before we close up shop for the evening?” Erin glanced at her watch. “It’s almost 5:00...”

“Actually, Holtzmann said, nervously running her fingers through her hair. “Um...”

“Maybe we should grab a bite to eat first,” Erin said with a shrug. “Bring Patty and Abby back some decent quality Chinese food instead of the usual crap Abby buys...actually good wonton soup...”

Holtzmann almost interrupted Erin as Erin trailed off, almost muttering to herself with, “That actually sounds like a great idea!”

“Cool,” Erin said with a smile as she hiked her proton pack on her back. It was starting to dig in. “I actually know a really nice place over on 16th, which is on the way ba--”

“ERIN! TRAIN!” Holtzmann screamed as the lights came through the tunnel.

“SHIT,” Erin said, grabbing the cannister and booking it to the edge of the platform. She jumped up and landed hard against her stomach, the air immediately going out of her lungs as she had the wind knocked out of her on the corner of the platform. She wheezed uselessly, legs kicking, screaming with no sound. 

A hand from nowhere grabbed her collar and yanked her up onto the platform as the train came barreling in, squeaking to a stop in the usual New York ear grating way.

“Who...what...” Erin said, catching her breath and looking up at her rescuer. 

“You really have to work out more, Gilbert,” Jillian Holtzmann said with a grin. Erin gazed up at her from her pile of limbs on the platform, sprawled out like she had just eaten face in the hallway from tripping down stairs or something. Holtzmann flashed her a huge grin and a wink.

“Shit, Jillian,” Erin said, coughing and standing. Jillian helped her up, clasping her hand and lifting her. Erin shivered at the gesture, catching a wiff of the cologne Holtzmann was wearing, sending a tingle down her abdomen. She shook it off. “Thank you. You saved my friggin life.”

“After this, Gilbert, you’re gonna come join me on a workout,” Holtzmann said. “You need it.”

“You work out?” Erin asked.

“What, you think I’m born like this?” Holtzmann said, pulling her sleeve up and flexing her sizable bicep. “It helps me relieve stress. And anxiety. It actually helps relieve a shit ton of stuff.”

“Wow, I gotta get me some of that,” Erin said with a smile. Holtzmann smiled back. Erin wasn’t sure, but she thought Holtzmann might just be serious for once. 

“So Chinese,” Erin said, pulling her gaze away from Holtzmann’s and grabbing the cannister. 

“Chinese,” Holtzmann said with a nod. The grin faded slightly. Erin noticed Holtz’s demeanor shift from her silly, goofy self to something a little more...nervous. She let it slide for now.

“Come on,” Erin said, gently tugging Holtz’s arm as she slung on her proton pack. The smile returned slightly.

They walked down 24th street together quietly. Manhattan’s rush hour was beginning -- people trickling at first and then pouring out of buildings; men dressed in suits, women in skirts and heels, making their way to cars and subways.

“It’s around this corner,” Erin said to Holtz, who nodded. She was kind of spacing a little bit. Erin shrugged internally again. It was probably a good idea to get out of the crowd, it was getting to her as well.

They successfully made it onto 23rd and Erin led them into a small alleyway between a building. It was an old, beat up Chinese place that seemed to be on its last, derelict legs.

“You think it’s gonna be going out of business, but actually they have really good stuff and like, there’s this whole community of people who know about it and come here all the time to keep it in business. Worth it,” Erin started to nervously chat. Why was she getting nervous?

They walked inside and placed their order, sitting at the corner table. Jillian pulled out a small wrench and some device and began to fiddle. The silence was comfortable at first, but stretched just a bit far into something a little tangible.

“Erin,” Holtz said suddenly, setting down the device and looking up at Erin. Erin looked up.

“What’s up, Holtz?” Erin asked.

Holtz paused for a second, trying to put together the ideas in her head into words that could be spoken.

“Ah, it’s cool,” Holtz said, her countenance brightening. “I just wanted to show you this thingie I’ve been working on.” She tapped the device and it beeped to life, a little red dot blinking.

“What is it?” Erin asked, picking it up. It was little more than a lump of wire and metal with a light sticking out of it. Still being fiddled on, a few silicone chips were wedged deeper into the mass.

“It’s a tracker,” Holtzmann said, alighting with excitement for her idea. She tapped the light on top and it turned off. “It’s basically a tiny little gps. We can place them around the city to keep track of ghost activity. We turn it on and the gps signal doesn’t activate until some sort of ecto-residue, slime, ionization, whatever, gets on it. And then BAM! We know where ghostly activity is!”

“Holtzmann that’s friggin brilliant!” Erin said, her mouth dropping open and then quickly closing it with a shut. “That’s gonna save us so much time just looking for a ghost, when all we have to do is find the tracker!”

“It’s a bit annoying, because if the ghost moves we’ll have a signal for something that no longer is there, but I think it’s a start--” Holtzmann said. Erin hugged her tightly and Holtz trailed off, a huge grin on her face.

“You’re amazing,” Erin said as the guy at the counter called her name. They stepped up to take the food, Erin checking the wontons had a good ratio of broth to wontons. “Perfect,” she said to herself.

They walked back together, Holtz amicably chatting about the algorithm she had to write up for the gps signal to automatically turn on, Erin occasionally throwing in a comment or a theorem. These little times, just having a group of people who understood what Erin was saying without any of the elitism of her ex-colleagues at Columbia. 

The warm bag of Chinese food hugged tight to her side, Erin’s other hand hovered by her pants. She started at first when she felt fingers brush at her hand, almost pulling away.

Holtz’s fingers jerked back, but Erin instinctively reached out and twined her fingers through the leather clad hand, long pale fingers twisting into hers. Erin looked down from the inch she had on Holtzmann and she saw Holtz staring forward at the ground, a giant grin on her face. Erin laughed slightly.

“Is this ok?” Holtz asked, looking up at her.

“This is ok,” Erin said, squeezing Holtz’s hand.


End file.
